


Camellias

by Zadabug98



Series: YOI One-shots [5]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Flowers, Fluff, Like, M/M, Meet-Cute, a lot of fluff, based off of a tumblr post, it's honestly just meet cute fluff, not really adressed or implied but it wasn't relevant so I'm telling you here, yuri and otabek are both college age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 18:15:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13618941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zadabug98/pseuds/Zadabug98
Summary: Yuri is getting tired of his cat bringing home flowers by the handful while Potya just wants her human to be happy.





	Camellias

**Author's Note:**

> The tumblr post this is based off of can be found [here](http://thoughts-of-an-x-factor.tumblr.com/post/164934085750/thoughts-of-an-x-factor) if the links work idk if it will or not but I have faith. Also the post is bit of a formatting nightmare because there's just so many pictures but it'll be alright. Hopefully.
> 
> I did some research and I'm reasonably sure that Mr. Slash (the actual cat from the OG tumblr post) was bringing back camellia debutantes (which are really pretty) and pink camellias in flower language stand for longing so really, this story wrote itself. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Otabek doesn’t know what the cat’s real name is, but he’s been calling her Fluffy in his head since she started coming by a few months ago while he’s out in the garden. He has no idea whether or not she comes by during the day, but she’s most certainly an almost nightly fixture of his gardening routine.

“Hey, Fluffy,” he says as she hops down from the cobblestone wall separating his yard from his neighbor’s. “I was just about to prune the camellias.”

Fluffy trills and bounces over to the camellia bushes that line the eastern wall. They’re a handful, and easily one of Otabek’s more difficult projects, but they’re also one his absolute favorites. It’s with a heavy heart that he trims off the more wilted blooms and throws them into the compost bin in the corner of the garden. Fluffy follows his footfalls diligently, sniffing at the cut blossoms until one catches her fancy and she meows.

Otabek laughs whenever this happens, handing over the approved blossom with a smile. “Here you go, Fluffy,” he says. “I hope whoever you’re giving these too loves them as much as you and I do.”

Fluffy never answers, instead darting off with the flower held gently in her teeth to wherever she lives. She always comes back a few minutes later, so it can’t be too far away, but Otabek respects her privacy and continues to snip of branches that don’t look like they’ll make it through the colder months, waiting until Fluffy returns to snip off any more flowers.

 

* * *

 

 

“Potya,” Yuri says in exasperation when his minx of a cat finally finds her way home. “Where do you keep finding these?”

Potya merely purrs lightly as the flower is removed from her mouth and photographed in what Yuri’s followers have come to refer to as the most adorable mystery known to mankind. Potya doesn’t get the hype, really. Her human is always sad when he’s in the house, but her dark-haired human is always happy when he’s with the flowers. Obviously, for her human to be happy, he needs flowers too.

Yuri sighs and pays her the appropriate tribute – neck rubs and salmon snacks – but still doesn’t look happy yet.

Oh well. The dark-haired human loves the fluffy pink flowers, but maybe her light-haired human wants something else.

 

* * *

 

Otabek looks up when Fluffy returns and frowns. “Fluffy,” he says, “I thought you liked the camellias?”

Fluffy simply huffs, refusing to move away from the pink hibiscus that Otabek had planted last year on a whim. Even now he’s still pleasantly surprised by the results. “Do you want to take your human a hibiscus?” he asks and then laughs when Fluffy trills and bats at the light pink flowers.

Otabek shrugs, standing up from his crouch in front of the last bush and heading over to the hibiscus. He picks one that seems ready to be picked and snips off the bloom, handing it over to Fluffy’s careful grip with an amused shrug.

Weird cat.

 

* * *

 

“Weird cat,” Yuri says when Potya brings her second gift of the day. “Why can’t you bring me mice or dead birds like a normal cat? I at least know how to handle that. I at least know what that means.”

Potya sniffs, offended, her gifts were obviously meant to cheer up her human. What was so hard to understand about that?

Yuri sighs, patting her on the head as he picked up the hibiscus from the carpet where she’d set it at his feet. “Where do you even go about getting a hibiscus this late at night? Are you stealing from someone’s yard?”

Potya sniffs again, even more offended at the accusation that she would stoop to stealing such precious, happiness bringing treasures. Although they hadn’t quite done a great job of making her human happy, had they?

Potya thinks about this as Yuri grabs the kitty-comb and runs it through her fur with even strokes. She stretches and thinks, thinks and stretches, and then she has an idea.

Maybe the happy bringers aren’t working because the dark-haired human has so many, and she’s only brought her human one or two.

Maybe, the answer is more flowers.

 

* * *

 

“Potya,” Yuri says a few days later. “I don’t need more flowers! Where are you even getting these?!”

 

* * *

 

“Fluffy, you’ve been taking quite a few flowers lately. Is everything alright?”

 

* * *

 

Potya is very confused.

No matter how many flowers she brings Yuri, all he does is take a picture and get more confused. Where are the smiles and soft humming of happiness that always come out of the dark-haired human whenever he’s around the flowers? Why won’t they make her human happy again?

Potya sighs, and decides that maybe she needs to ask someone who knows how to make their humans happy. She doesn’t want to, but she’ll do anything for her human.

Even talk to a dog.

 

* * *

 

Makkachin laughs at her. Not in the malicious, smugly satisfied way that another cat would – she would understand that kind of laughter – but instead in the way that Makkachin’s tall human laughs at her human. It makes her whiskers twitch and her tail swish but she needs answers, so she endures.

“Are you quite done?” she asks, and Makkachin settles his face into his paws with all the grace his arthritic body can provide.

“I’m sorry, Potya,” he says, “But you’re just so cute trying to make your person happy with flowers.”

Potya snorts and then sighs. “I’d be much cuter if I could get it to work,” she says. “Why doesn’t it work? You have happy humans! What do they have that make them happy? Can I borrow some for mine?”

Makkachin laughs again, and Potya feels her patience wearing thin. “Potya,” he says. “My humans make _each other_ happy. They’re not like you or me. You can’t just give them a treat and be done with it.”

Potya growls low in her throat, frustrated. “Why do humans have to be so complicated,” she hisses.

Makkachin shrugs, turning over onto his side with a huff. “Who knows?” he says. “Certainly not me. Whatever it is about your new human’s flowers that make him happy, I’m sure it’s not just the flowers themselves. Maybe sit and listen for a while and he might tell you. Humans are weird like that. They like to talk when they think no one is listening.”

 

* * *

 

So Potya does. She sits, and she listens, and she learns.

She learns that Otabek’s garden was first his father’s, the camellias a special favorite of his mother, and that when they had to move to a different city for work and left Otabek behind for school the responsibility of caring for the garden fell to him. It keeps his parents close, he says, and Potya wonders about the empty walls of Yuri’s blank apartment. How only Makkachin’s humans and a few of Yuri’s friends from school ever wish him happy birthday.

Potya wonders how she could have missed the way that her human huddles close to her on certain nights when the windows rattle with wind and the floors shake from thunder. She wonders if anyone ever actually held him the way she wishes she were big enough to.

She watches her dark-haired human tend to unruly vines and stinging thorns with patience, respect, and care, and she finds that maybe what her human needed wasn’t a garden, but rather a gardener.

 

* * *

 

She puts her plan into place a few days later, and she prays that it will work the way she wants. It’s easy to steal Otabek’s little black pocket rectangle of noise and light when he bends down to prune the rose bushes. A bit difficult to keep in her mouth with a shouting human hot on her heels but her house isn’t really that far so she’s not worried.

After that it’s simply a matter of running around her humans’ ankles until they fall into each other. Easy as crab cake.

“Oh,” her human says. “Hello.”

“Hello,” her dark-haired human says, and then, “Are you Fluffy’s owner?”

Her human blinks, stunned, glancing down at Potya’s patient stance a few paces away. “I am,” he says, looking back at Otabek with a perplexed sort of dawning understanding on his face. “Are you the one she keeps stealing flowers from?”

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed it please let me know!!! Hope you have a great weekend!
> 
> Also, if you wanna check out some more of my YoI works then go ahead and check out the rest of my YoI stand alone fics if you want and/or take a gander at my multi-chapter behemoth of a fic that I promise I'm still working on it's just been a weird couple of weeks.


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